ACA Repeal/Replace: Progressives Face Moral Dilemma

[Kinser79]

(03-30-2017, 11:35 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-29-2017, 02:55 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: There will never be single payer in the US.  There are several good reasons why.

1.  People who've used Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA find it difficult to find a doctor who will take them, and in the case of the VA--yeah that is government run health care and it works great.  Said no one whose ever tried to use it, ever.

I'm on Medicare, and have no trouble finding a doctor.

Then you are fortunate. Many doctors are dropping both medicare and medicaid because the government doesn't pay the same as private insurance and costs for them are rising steeply.

Quote: I've also used the VA, and they are only limited by their funding.  The services are good if certainly not great.

If you think the VA's services are good then you must not have had very seriously health problems for them to deal with. I'm a veteran too but I prefer using private doctors even though I have to pay for them. My experiences with the VA have not been positive.

Quote:  The funding can be fixed, and the VA would be much less burdened if Medicare For All handled non-veteran-specific healthcare.  Let the VA take care of PTSD (they are the best in the world) and provide prosthetics and similar services for the wounded and disabled.

In other threads people are talking about how the federal government can't seem to find the money to keep the lights on in the Capitol building. Where is the funding for "Medicare for All" going to come from? The GOP has never seen a tax increase it liked, and the Dims have yet to find a government program cut they liked. And that is before we even get into the nightmare that would be turning over 20% of the US economy over to the government--the very same people who have brought us such marvels of customer service as the DMV and IRS.

[quoteFirst, raise taxes on the those who have paid far less than they should.  Both Reagan and Clinton handed the wealthy tax bonanzas.  Time to take them back.  But that may be less an issue, since single payer is vastly more efficient than the kluge system we currently have.  We spend 2 to 3 times as much of our GDP by percentage than other advanced countries.[/quote]

Considering that the Rich already pay 60% of all income taxes I don't think taxing them more is going to help and taxing corporations is probably a bad idea considering the US already has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. If you want to tax something--I'd suggest instituting a nice large Tariff--say 25% on non-food, finished goods. But even so that still would not pay for medicare for all.

It should also be noted that all those other advanced countries you mention are all US allies and fall under our military umbrella. Their welfare states would collapse the second they had to start spending their own money to defend themselves again. That is one area where I want to see massive budget cuts.

Quote:Blah, blah, blah.  The linkage is not supported by data anywhere.  People get sick and injured.  We can take care them efficiently or not.  If not, then many become disabled and wards of the state.  Why does that make sense?

So you have decided to ignore that kin selection is a factor in human behavior. Noted. It seems that you are impervious to facts then.

[quote
Medicare and its less generous cousin, Medicaid, have much lower imbedded costs, and work better all around.  I have not had to fight with Medicare over services and disallowed charges -- not once.  Even errors were corrected fast and with no pain.  You are simply wrong on this.
[/quote]

Medicare and Medicaid work better all around because they funnel the elderly and the poor to the worst doctors around. Seriously I know many doctors--I grew up around the health care provision industry. Any doctor that can get better deals from private insurers is going to drop both in a heart beat. Medicare and Medicaid right now have lower over head, but they are only covering the elderly and the destitute now. When they have to cover everyone I immagine there will be a huge swelling of bureacracy. Indeed it will turn into a nightmare.

Anything the private sector does poorly the government can do worse. And I'm right on this--look at how great public schools are what with people graduating high school and being illiterate.